


II

by Crowgirl



Series: Welcoming Silences [3]
Category: Foyle's War
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Internal Conflict, Internal Monologue, M/M, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-14 01:51:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4545591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/pseuds/Crowgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Foyle goes back to the station directly from the hospital.</p>
            </blockquote>





	II

Foyle goes back to the station directly from the hospital. He sits down at his own desk and looks at the files in a neat stack and then across the room at the second, empty desk. There’s a clean blotter on it, a small metal cup with one pencil stub, a space for a phone. 

He had used it for spare files until he got tired of looking at the piles and spent a long afternoon with the desk sergeant putting them into the actual cabinets that lined the wall under the windows. It would be pleasant to have someone else working there again -- even better to have it be Paul Milner. He doesn’t question why Milner, in particular, too closely.

Foyle sits back, remembering the look on Paul’s face when he entered the ward that afternoon -- then thinks about the time before that, Paul asleep, the doctor speaking quietly about the operation that had taken part of his leg, the faint but persistent odor of anesthetic and antiseptic that seemed to cling around his clothes after he left the building. 

Perhaps he should just have written a card, sent flowers, and not gone back. That would have been the sensible thing to do, certainly.

He picks up a pen, flips it between finger and thumb for a minute, and frowns at his blotter. It would have been the eminently sensible, reasonable thing to do but-- ‘I’m not being sensible,’ he says aloud, quietly, to himself. 

And he isn’t, he knows he isn’t. Copying case files, taking them out of the station, leaving them in a public place with someone who isn’t even in the force -- if that isn’t textbook irrational behavior for someone like him, he feels he should hand in his papers right now because he’s surely never going to find a murderer.

So why is he doing this? What is it about one wounded soldier that’s bringing him to this?

He frowns at the pen and makes a random scrawl on his blotter, then sits forward and pulls the case files towards him, spreading them out like an oversized hand of cards. He flips the first one open and stares blindly at the first page.

Because this isn’t “one wounded soldier,” is it? This is Paul Milner and that makes it different. If it had been his sergeant from five years before, he would have sent flowers, sent his sympathies, sent a card -- not gotten so wound up in the memory of a pale, unconscious face that he couldn’t concentrate properly until he made sure Paul was still himself. 

And he is -- mostly, Foyle tells himself, so it should be over now -- well, over except for going back to retrieve the copied files and listen to whatever Paul has to say about them. Foyle sighs silently, leaning forward on his elbows and pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. 

Unreasonable. He’s stuck on the word. He was unreasonable before the war and now he’s being unreasonable during it -- and to what end? What is he going to gain for himself, for Paul, for _anyone_ except frustration and...and misunderstanding...and possibly a criminal charge. 

He sighs again and leans back in his chair, sucking meditatively on a back tooth. No, it isn’t irrationality or a sudden loss of his ability to reason -- he’s old enough to pride himself, at least a little, on not lying to himself about the big things. In turn, he feels he can be fair to himself. The fact that he can’t simply ask Paul to dinner on a Friday night as he might a woman he felt similarly... drawn to doesn’t make his desire to extend the invitation _unreasonable_ , just -- difficult.

In any case, he has no idea that Paul would say yes or even understand what he was talking about -- he’s a married man, for God’s sake, and everything points to him having a perfectly happy, satisfied marriage. Foyle has no reason -- hah! -- at all to believe that Paul has ever considered another man in anything but a friendly light.

Foyle shakes his head hard. Now he really _is_ verging on being seriously foolish and that would be inexcusable. Daydreaming is all well and good but this is his job and, if he can persuade him back, Paul’s job as well. His own feelings are his own problem. He’s known that for years already.

So. He won’t let it go that far. He wants Paul’s help on this case because he was a good detective before the war and Foyle fails to believe that some months in uniform knocked that out of him.

He sighs again, then pushes his shoulders back, forces himself to sit up straight, and focus on the papers in front of him.


End file.
